Tag Archives: zimmerman martin

I am still confused about how I feel with the Zimmerman, Martin Stand Your Ground ruling. I did not attend the hearing, and I need to trust the jury did the right thing, and made the right decision. Unfortunately, from what I understand of the events that took place and the bias of the law itself, the ruling does not sit well with me.

In my understanding:

Martin is walking down the street Zimmerman is in a vehicle driving down the street.

Zimmerman gets out of his vehicle and approaches Martin who stands his ground, literally.

Martin is shot by Zimmerman.

It does not seem to be any more clear than this. Everything that happened after Zimmerman got out of his vehicle does not matter to me. If Zimmerman never got out of his vehicle, there would not have been a shooting.

As for the Stand Your Ground defense. It seems to me that it was Martin who used his legal right to stand his ground against an aggressor, not the other way around. Zimmerman could have driven away.

If I was a young man of Martins age, I would not have ran. I would have stayed put as is my right. I feel if Zimmerman didn’t think he had the backup protection of pulling out his gun, and using it, he could have left his gun locked up in his vehicle.

Perhaps Zimmerman felt empowered by the thought of having his gun on his person if he decided he needed it. Martin felt empowered by his martial arts knowledge and previous fights.

Martin depended on his youth and his ability. It wasn’t Martin’s first rodeo, or at least I do not think it was. He was, I read taking, martial arts classes. Usually people who do, have a need to. A young man by himself is a target. Martin was young, he was strong, and I feel, he felt he could take care of himself if he needed to.

Here it is the way I see it. Martin is walking along, Zimmerman stops his vehicle, gets out and approaches Martin. Obviously it isn’t to ask directions or share a joke. Martin being a young man thinks if worse comes to worse, he will get his ass kicked, but he doubts it. At any rate he isn’t going to take any crap from this guy. He has every right to be where he is. Martin is shot, and dies.

Yet Zimmerman is allowed to use the Stand your Ground Defense. It sounds like Martin was expected to use the cower and run away defense because Martin was not in the courtroom to say He was Standing His Ground and reinforcing his right to be there on that street, whether he had family, friends, or business around there. He was free to go and do what he wanted, and walk down that street was what he wanted.

I know if it were me, instead of Martin, I too would have stood there. So would you if you feel that strongly about personal rights, and personal freedom. I would only get beat up once. I would live with myself every day thereafter for the rest of my life.

In my opinion, or it appears to me, Zimmerman, the older Man approached a much younger, stronger man and created a conflict that got out of hand, and Zimmerman panicked.

Instead of halting the provocation at any time before the conflict turned physical, Zimmerman perhaps steeled himself with the idea that he was in charge. Of course the fight was one sided. Here is a young strong man fighting with a older out of shape man, who is spending as much time trying to get his gun out of his pocket, as he is in trying to defend himself.

I didn’t watch the trial daily, and I may be wrong in what I think are the facts. What I think I do know however is, one man left his vehicle and approached another man when he should have stayed in his vehicle or driven away.